Stone Age Companions: Humans and animals in hunter-gatherer burials in North-eastern Europe

The dissertation project examines hunter-gatherer burials in the Baltic Sea region and Northern Europe. Animal bones and tooth pendants from cemeteries in Latvia, Sweden and Russia are studied with cross-disciplinary methods, including osteology, C14 dating and stable isotope analysis. The project problematizes the Holocene hunter-gatherer relationship with the animal world and the surrounding environment, and investigates how animal and human worlds co-existed, encountered and influenced one another during the Stone Age. The dissertation project aims to bring together archaeological materials from Scandinavia and north-eastern Europe and discuss them in a wider perspective. It seeks to complement the previous research on animals in the Stone Age that has mainly focused on animals as a resource, and to offer a more complete understanding.